The delegate of the Government in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz Nalda, has criticized that the Government of La Rioja is using as an arrogant weapon the implementation of the wallet cards to generate conflict with the central Government, in a process of partisan politics in the short term because from January it will be the autonomous communities, as administrations with exclusive competence for it, the ones responsible for managing the wallet cards alone.
Arraiz Nalda appeared before the media this morning to clarify all the information that is being generated around the implementation of the wallet cards.
The delegate explained that the wallet cards are a new model of aid for families in situations of extreme vulnerability, who charge less than 40% of the state average - below 6,725 euros per year - and are responsible for children or adolescents. With their implementation, the priority objective of combating child poverty is met, a goal set by the European Commission with the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) that finances the wallet card program.
To facilitate the transition to this new model, the Government of Spain has launched the system this year, in a transitory and extraordinary way until January 2025, to facilitate and give time to the autonomous communities, competent administrations of this, to implement their management systems and give continuity to the Material Assistance program of the European Social Fund Plus.
The autonomous governments, for their part, had to design an aid system that incorporates this management system and gives security to all people who need it.
The delegate has also clarified that it is important to bear in mind that cards are a means that must be added to others that the autonomous communities already have. Therefore, “it is a complementary system to those that already exist and have arrived to become a reinforcement of the aid that is currently offered, not to replace it”, he added.
Last January a Royal Decree was approved for the Red Cross to implement the wallet card system and this entity already tendered in April a total of seven supermarket chains where these cards can be used. At that time, the autonomous governments were informed that the system was already at their disposal to begin identifying the families that meet the requirements of access to these cards and referring them to the Red Cross to authorize the distribution of these cards.
Arraiz Nalda specifies that he knows that there are regional governments that already have this work well ahead of them. Not in vain, Cantabria has already started to refer some families to the Red Cross and, very soon, there will be other communities.
Without communicating the derivations
However, the delegate held a meeting this morning with the Red Cross to learn about the situation in our autonomous community. At the moment, the regional government is one of the few regional administrations that has not yet communicated when it will start to derive the beneficiaries of the wallet card to this entity.
For Arraiz Nalda, it is worrying that the Government of La Rioja is evading its obligations and putting the lack of information as an excuse. In this regard, he has clarified that the Government of Spain, through the Ministry of Social Rights, held two meetings on 4 and 19 April with the technical teams of all the autonomous communities to inform them of the latest details for the implementation of this system and resolve some issues.
In addition, last week another technical meeting was held between the Government of Spain and the autonomous communities to continue addressing details about the implementation of the program, to which four communities, one of them La Rioja, were absent.
Therefore, the delegate stressed that it is the Government of La Rioja that must explain why it was not present at this meeting for the implementation of this new system. For this reason, he has demanded that the Riojan Executive provide explanations because “it is a clear sign of lack of coherence that complains that it lacks information and at the same time, do not attend a meeting in which all the technical information on this program was reviewed”.
He pointed out that it is not true that the autonomous communities have not been informed, since meetings have been held for the implementation of the wallet cards and the Ministry of Social Rights has maintained permanent contact with the regional technical groups to answer any questions that have been raised,
In addition, the Ministry has also responded to letters sent by regional governments based on this issue and, finally, the Extraordinary Territorial Council requested by the communities presided over by the PP to evaluate the implementation of this wallet card system that should be managed by the regional governments in collaboration with the Spanish Red Cross has been convened for this Friday, May 24.
Regarding this Council, he explained that no decisions will be made regarding changes to the wallet card program because it is only informative. The autonomous communities already know that there can be no changes because the program was already closed two years ago, when the general requirements for access to the wallet cards that were established in the Basic Program of the ESF+ in 2022 and that are based on the priority objective that the European Union established to fight child poverty were approved.
Therefore, the delegate has said that the call requested by the autonomous communities of the PP of this Extraordinary Territorial Council is, unfortunately, just one more step to not assume its responsibility, which is to identify and refer to the families who have the right to receive the cards.
A new model
The wallet card system is part of the Basic Material Assistance Program of the European Social Fund Plus, adopted unanimously by all the autonomous communities at the end of 2021 and which offers regional executives a new tool to strengthen the portfolio of services and benefits they already have for the care of families in extreme vulnerability.
The three funding lines of the ESF+ programme are:
1. The recharge of the cards, which is the bulk of the funding, 88% of the total, and is the money that goes to food and basic products, and that this year will receive only the Red Cross.
2. Technical assistance, 5%, and that, during 2024, is also destined only to the Red Cross to manage this system.
3. Accompanying measures, 7%, which are intended for the autonomous communities and which they have to justify later in audits.
At the time, it was decided that the program would be financed only with the state section of the ESF+ to liberate the autonomous section and, in this way, offer more resources to the autonomous governments. In this way, each autonomous community has 7% of the European Social Fund Plus to, if necessary, strengthen its social services or social care programs or increase funding to Food Banks, and, in this way, make it possible for this food distribution system to serve as a complement to those that already exist today.